Quill & Parchment: Degas Woman

Degas Woman
by John Macker

My language is as much yours as mine,
when you speak, I know
which map to find us on, which
longitude
traverses us,
mountain daylight time
is what makes us tick. I know
your lips,
the rapture was the first moment I saw them
amidst the old jazz albums
and beat paperbacks and you
haven't changed since Degas
painted you
all those years ago.

In your eyes,
I can see a motel with a pool,
edge of the desert, when we couldn't
drive any farther,
after three days in Mexico,
trailed by the squalor of a dozen border
towns and each one carried
its own doomed fragrance on the
summer breeze.
I see blue oceans roiling with mysteries
and transmissions from the deep,
once they're solved.

Sleeping in mid-winter, when the sunrise
glows rosy on the snow, the animals in our
dreams are soul chasers;
when you take your morning hike,

the
incredible blues of the jays follow.

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